


Selfie?

by smallxion



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - High School, Autism, Bullying, Crossdressing, F/F, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Misgendering, Multi, Neurodiversity, School Dances, Scotland, Slurs, Teen Romance, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3732574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallxion/pseuds/smallxion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Sora stopped on one picture about halfway through and grinned. It was one in which Kairi’s hat had fallen down, just obscuring her eyes, only showing her happy, lazy smile, and Sora’s entire face was blurred from the headbanging which had seemed a good idea at the time but had resulted in a kind of mild headache. “I like this one,” he said, smiling like a little kid. “It really…feels like us. If that makes sense?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>In which Sora and Kairi are gay fucking nerds, Xemnas is miraculously not in deep shit and Roxas functions a little different than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night Before

Every year on the last day of the summer holidays, Kairi would have Sora round at her house to stay the night. It had been their special best friend tradition since they were just starting secondary school, and it served as sort of a preparation for what was to come: the academic year being back in full swing, swiftly punching them in the face with homework and Monday mornings. They needed to fade into that shit carefully, and scientifically speaking, the best way to manage that was to stay up all night together eating crap food and talking about crushes.

Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that when you’re up at 4AM, conversations get weird fast, and the scale of said weirdness (and the rapidity at which it grows) is directly proportional to the amount of sugar ingested by all involved parties which, in Kairi and Sora’s case, was a metric fuckton. This in mind, it was somewhat understandable that, while they leafed through Kairi’s wardrobe to try things on, they were playing Fuck/Marry/Kill with cartoon characters.

“Okay, I got one,” Kairi announced, trying on a particularly gaudy sequined cowgirl hat. “Papa from Berenstein Bears, Miss Finster from Recess and the Pink Panther.”

Sora ‘hmm’ed thoughtfully as he held a cute miniskirt to his waist and, judging that there was no way it would fit him, discarded it. “I’d definitely kill Finster, but that kind of leaves me with no choice but bestiality, and that’s not really my aesthetic, you know?”

“This game was your idea,” she sang-spoke, tossing a nice A-line with a wider waist in his direction.

He caught the skirt, looked at it in the mirror and, in approval, shot Kairi a nod. “Well, I guess I’d have to, uh, do it with Papa Bear. He seems more human than the panther.” With that, he started pulling the skirt up on over his pyjama trousers.

“He has a wife and kids, you total homewrecker.”

“Give me a break, Kairi!” Sora chuckled, then turned back to his reflection. His outfit- well, technically Kairi’s; they were her clothes, after all, but he was wearing them, so there- was pretty freaking awesome if he did say so himself. The skirt Kairi had tossed over was a light lilac that complimented the shimmery teal top he’d picked out. Kairi looked kickass too, of course, in her favourite pink summer skort and the pretty flowy pleaty white top, and of course that fucking hat. There was only one thing to do.

“Selfie?” he proposed.

“Do you even need to ask?”

They pushed some random crap (Dairy Milk wrappers, Sora’s PE Kit, a bazillion teddy bears) off the beanbag on the floor, and on it they posed with peace signs and silly expressions for their favourite dumb teenager activity. Sora was one of those people who wasn’t satisfied with taking just one picture, so he jabbed the button at least twenty times, he and Kairi changing their stances after every click. When they were done with their super intense modelling session, they flicked through the photos.

Sora stopped on one picture about halfway through and grinned. It was one in which Kairi’s hat had fallen down, just obscuring her eyes, only showing her happy, lazy smile, and Sora’s entire face was blurred from the headbanging which had seemed a good idea at the time but had resulted in a kind of mild headache. “I like this one,” he said, smiling like a little kid. “It really…feels like us. If that makes sense?”

“It actually really does.”

“I’m making it my lock screen image.”

He went ahead and did so while Kairi played with his (unnecessarily spiky) hair. She yawned. “Would you rather only eat asparagus forevermore, or live the rest of your life in the body of a rabbit…?”

“Rabbit,” he answered without a second thought. “I need my chocolate.”

“Chocolate is poisonous to rabbits, actually.”

Sora put his phone down and stared at her. “Well, then, what’s the point?”

Kairi giggled. “I’m glad to know where your priorities lie,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Gosh, I’m kinda sleepy.” She took her hat off, chucked it aside and flopped back to lie on the beanbag. “How long until we have to get ready for school?” She was quickly losing the ability to keep her eyes open.

“About three hours,” said Sora, doing a quick double check of the time on his phone. 

“Ah.”

“Riku’ll be fast asleep.”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna wake him up?”

She shot up, eyes suddenly bright and attentive despite the dark circles. “You bet I do!” She grabbed Sora’s phone, unlocked it- passcode 1234, because he had no common sense- and selected his contacts list.

However, before she could get scrolling for Riku’s name, Sora snatched the phone back from her. He tilted the screen away from her and started tapping at the screen with more vigour than he had ever outwardly expressed before. Where was this work ethic during our history assignment? Kairi wondered, and then, noticing her friend’s bright red cheeks, adopted a sly smile. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” he insisted. “It’s just my phone’s froze and I’m trying to get it to work again.” He kept tapping, like the phone wasn’t cooperating. His eyes bore into the screen like he was pleading it to just this once please do what he wanted. Kairi, though, saw his apparent distraction as the knock of opportunity. She took a quick peek over his shoulder. 

Sora couldn’t hide his phone screen as fast as Kairi could read. His finger kept tapping in the name field of an ‘edit contact’ page with Riku’s picture on it, for which the name field read ‘the babe’. Sora looked in horror at his friend, who had put two and two together and was grinning in delight.

“Sora!” she gasped, clasping her hands together. “Oh my gosh! That’s adorable! Does he know? Have you told him? Are you going to ask him out? Are you ALREADY out? Oh my gosh, Sora, you need to tell me these things!”

In truth, he wasn’t exactly embarrassed that Kairi had twigged his crush on the guy. No, he was just embarrassed that she found out this way. By reading his silly contact name for Riku. The one that he’d made just-for-the-lels at 4am some night when it was too hot to sleep. 

“Uh, no, he has no idea, actually,” Sora admitted, “so I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell him. I’m not sure how he’d take it.”

Kairi nodded.

“Promise?”

She took his hand, a serious look about her. “You know I’d never go around blabbing your secrets, right? Sora, I’m your best friend.” Intertwining her fingers with his, she looked at him with eyes that demanded a response.

He smiled faintly. “Yeah, of course I do. Thanks, Kairi.”

“But Riku! For how long, Sora? Oh my gosh, it would be so romantic if you liked him way back when we were little kids, oh my gosh, you could be like those soulmates-“

“Kairi, stop,” he laughed. “It’s nothing like that. It only really started a couple weeks ago.” He took his hand away from hers and wrung it with the other, staring downwards. He looked up with a new heartiness. “Crush for a crush! You have to tell me who you like now!”

Now Kairi’s face reddened. “I don’t like anyone,” she said softly, drawing her knees up to her chest in a defensive gesture. Her smile was embarrassed, even nervous. 

“You’re not getting off that easily!” teased Sora. “Come on. Who is it?”

She looked down and covered her face, tense giggles erupting from her throat. 

“Aw, come on, Kairi. You know you can tell me, right?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’d never go around blabbing your secrets,” he echoed. “I’m your best friend.”

Kairi laughed for a few moments more, then stopped. Hugging her knees now more than previously, so tightly it seemed she might cut off their circulation, she looked Sora in the face. “Okay, okay. Fine.” A few more seconds of the giggles. “I can do this!” she breathed. A moment’s pause. “Okay. Do you know Naminé?”

“I think she’s in my cousin’s nurture group. Uh, is she the smart blonde kid?”

Kairi gave a curt nod. “Her.”

“Oh my God, Kairi, really?” Sora beamed. “You two would be great together, I just know it!”

Her face lit up. “You mean that?”

“Of course!”

Kairi looked happy but still eager to change the subject. She gestured to her friend’s phone. “So, are we going to call the babe?”

“Shut up,” he chuckled, adding 141 to the start of Riku’s number. They sniggered as he hit the call button, but Kairi’s look quickly turned to one of worry. Simultaneously with the first ring, she grabbed her friend by the sleeve. “Sora, what the heck are we even going to say?!”

“…Dammit!” he said. “You speak!” He thrust the phone into her hand and jumped up and away so she wouldn’t just hand it back.

“What- Sora! Come back!” Kairi ordered. “I don’t know what to-”

“Who the fuck is this?”

Riku had picked up, and Kairi knew she had to improvise something. Heart pounding, she mouthed ‘screw you´ Sora and then closed her eyes, hoping a good idea would come to her in the precious few nanoseconds she had before she really needed to speak. She prayed for a sudden stroke of genius to hit her so hard she’d be lucky to stay conscious. It did not come, of course, but what did come was as follows:

“Hello, am I speaking with Riku?”

“…Yes…”

“Um, this is Charlotte from Forth One! You just won three tickets to see...” Her mind blanked and she looked to Sora for help. He shrugged fantastically, so it was all down to her to save the day. She took a deep breath and searched her mind for the name of a band. Oh God, please, any band. 

“Westlife!” Except that one!

Sora gave her a kind of what-were-you-thinking glance. She threw a hand in the air, no idea herself.

“It’s, like, four in the morning or something.”  
Well, Kairi decided, go big or go home. “All you need to do to claim your fabulous prize is answer this question!” Another few seconds of brainstorming, then: “Who is objectively more attractive out of the mouse from An American Tail and the artist formerly known as Prince?” 

“What the fuck kind of question-”

“Ten seconds remaining on the clock! Hurry up with your answer!” Kairi and Sora’s eyes met and in the sheer gracelessness of the moment they couldn’t help but collapse in laughter. Sora doubled over first and Kairi fell right beside him, taking good care not to let his phone hit the ground hard. They curled in on themselves as they laughed, and thus inadvertently cuddled into each other.

On the other end of the line, Riku was clearly fed up and, in a slightly more awake state, aware of exactly who he was talking to. “Oh, very funny, jackasses.” The call ended less than a second later, and the two kept laughing until their stomachs hurt, at which point they were pretty much running on zero.

They fell asleep at half past four in the morning, curled up together like drowsy kittens.


	2. Back to Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day of the new school year: you know the drill.

As Sora and Kairi walked through the front entrance of the school, the first person they saw was one of Sora’s cousins.

“Hey, Ven,” said Sora.

Ventus smiled. “Hey.” He looked like a massive prat even with his perfect uniform because his hair was going all over the place, including directions that didn’t look physically possible. Kairi gave a little wave to be polite then pulled Sora forwards before it could develop into awkward smalltalk.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as they pressed on into the hall.

“What?”

“Ventus’ hair looks like it belongs on one of your old Sonic OCs.”

Sora elbowed her. “Shut up!”

Due to some impressive sleeping-in, they got to school only a few minutes before the first period bell, which meant two things: they didn’t have much time, and pretty much everyone was already in the building, so it was loud as hell with their chattering and groaning about how they already missed the summer. Kairi scanned the crowd, her eyes eventually resting on a spot across the room, where Riku sat at the edge of a table. She pulled Sora over.

“Riku, hi!” said Kairi, taking the seat opposite him. Sora sat down beside her.

He yawned. “Yeah, hi, fuck you both for last night.”

Sora grinned. “Love you too, Riku.”

“Oh, you love him, alright,” Kairi murmured. Sora promptly elbowed her once again, this time in the ribs, and she suppressed a laugh.

Riku raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what the hell you just said, but you don’t want to piss off Sora. ‘Cause I’m already pissed off at you, and if you piss him off too, you’re gonna be Kairi Naemates for the first day back.”

“Oh, Riku,” she said, “we all know you’re just grumpy because today you start Higher Maths.”

“Eugh.” He covered his face with both hands and shook his head. ”Don’t remind me, asshole.”

“I don’t think Maths is so hard.” Sora’s voice was full of the naivety of youth.

Riku scoffed. “Okay, let’s see if you’re still saying that by the end of this year.”

“Come on, how bad can-”

“Trust me, Sora, I’ve literally just finished the year you’re starting. Listen to the master. Respect my goddamn advice and bookmark Wolfram Alpha or some shit.” He stretched his arms a bit and yawned once more. “You two are pretty fucking late for the first day back. Sleep in again?”

They nodded.

“Mhm. Figures,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket to fiddle with. “Well, you didn’t miss much, except Xemnas being kind of an ass to some first years.”

Xemnas was a strange phenomenon. He had graduated from high school a good few years prior, but due to poor security, he could still sneak in and talk to his weird little cult following as long as he shoved his old uniform on. It was creepy and kind of sad but he held decent social status anyway simply because, holy shit, he was fucking Xemnas, and he was smart enough to do some scary damage.

“Do you ever wish our school, like, met child protection standards or something?” Kairi asked. “I mean, he’s twenty-one. This is getting ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well, we know complaining’ll do jack shit, so we kind of have to ignore it,” said Riku. 

Sora looked struck by some thought. “Have you seen-”

“Yes,” Riku interrupted. “Roxas is here. No, Xemnas hasn’t gave him any shit yet. Relax, Sora, it’s not even first period.”

Sora visibly relaxed. His little cousin wasn’t exactly the best at fitting in. Being part of the family, Sora could see he was actually a lot like his wonderboy big brother: dedicated, funny, friendly (not to mention they had the same stupidly dynamic hair). Other people tended not to see it that way, because while Ventus was straightforward and relatively conventional, the way Roxas’ brain worked was a little different.

“Speaking of first period…” Kairi pulled her timetable out of her pocket and, giving it a quick look, groaned. “Geography.”

“I’m in PE.” Sora smiled. “We’re supposed to be doing the Bleep Test.”

“I swear to God, only you could see that as a good thing.”

Riku snorted. “Yeah, both of you can shut up, because I have a double period of Maths.”

“I’m telling you, I think you’re overreacting a little.”

“Sora, I am literally one shit comment away from punching you.” It would have been threatening if Riku wasn’t smiling while he said it.

Sora laughed. “Just make sure it’s not my face, okay? It holds, like, half my charm at least.”

“No promises, little guy.”

Just then, the building was filled with a grating ringing noise. The masses stood up and grabbed their bags, ready for the great high school student migration of walking to their first class. For a surreal moment, everyone in the vicinity just sort of stopped talking, and they didn’t sigh out loud, but it definitely felt as if they did. 

Riku banged his head against the table.

“I actually kind of like this part,” said Kairi. “There’s a real sense of community, like, our mutual hatred for the privilege of education brings us together or something.”

Riku forced himself onto his feet. “Shut up, Kairi.” He took a deep breath to psyche himself up and turned for the Maths corridor. “See ya later.”

“Bye!” Sora called, loud enough to make a few heads turn and subsequently shake. He stood still to skim his timetable once more as he had sort of forgotten where he was, and a human traffic jam piled up all around him. He heard some swearing around him in an angry voice (Axel’s? Marluxia’s?) so he picked up the pace. As he did that, he looked around for Kairi, but she was gone in the crowd.

Walking to class alone was usually a little boring, but the first day back was pretty awesome. Friends had almost two months of shit to catch up on! Hallways were a blast! Sora wasn’t exactly eavesdropping…he wouldn’t use such a strong word. He was just taking in his surroundings, which happened to include some minted conversations, with the traditional five senses, which happened to include his hearing.

“…and I’m telling you, he just jumped in the wheelie bin and rolled down the M8!”

“…Alaskan thunderfuck, and it’s seriously the best thing I’ve ever…”

“…so he takes his boxers off, right, and out pop these two enormous…”

“…dad’s favourite scorpion, so we had to go all the way to Glasgow for…”

Even the little snatches he could get were satisfying enough. He could fill a book with the things people said when they thought nobody was listening in. He wouldn’t do that, though, because telling secrets was unfair. 

Secrets. He guessed he considered his little crush a secret, because secret crushes were totally more fun. Besides, he really liked having things that just him and Kairi knew. It reminded him of when they were little kids and they used to do dumb shit like steal cookies from the kitchen without getting caught, but it was more than that, because he could trust Kairi. He’d known her for God knows how long and he would put his life in her hands. But not his laptop, because last time he let that happen, he logged onto facebook to discover that in his latest status he’d publicly declared his love for Shrek.

As he was attempting to piece together what the fuck scorpions had to do with Glasgow, he reached the PE department, and upon this stopped dead in his tracks. His teacher was going to kill him dead, new term or not, because coming to school unprepared was a massive no-no. 

He dug around in his backpack just to be totally sure he was fucked, but came up with nothing except a half-eaten packet of Soothers. “Dang it dang it dang it dang it dang it…” He threw the Soothers aside, and by accident, in the process he hit a first year in the head.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry!” he yelped. 

The little kid glared, kicked him in the shin and moved along. A couple of Xemnas’ idiot friends who were leaning against the wall laughed like baboons.

So with a surprisingly sharp pain in his leg, Xigbar and Xaldin a few metres away, his bag lying open on the floor, open to be trampled be the whole school population, Sora couldn’t really think about anything other than his PE kit, which was evidently still lying on Kairi’s bedroom floor.


	3. Crayons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm just kind of vomiting words onto a document now.

Riku slammed shut his locker. “Come on, guys, don’t tell me I’m walking home alone today!”

“Well, sorry,” said Kairi. “It’s just that Belle invited me to Art Club, and I promised I’d check it out, so…”

Sora nodded. “And I’m still in detention with Mr Xehanort!” He grimaced at his shoes. “It’s so awkward. Like, the only other guy in there is Terra, as in Head Boy Terra, and all he’ll talk about is weird sixth year stuff I don’t understand, and Xehanort’s eyes are like some kind of weird alien jewellery-”

“Okay, we get it, Sora, you can shut up now.” Riku nudged his friend, then put a hand on his shoulder. “Sounds like you have an hour of fun ahead of you.”

“I guess I’d better get going,” Sora said glumly. “Wish me luck, guys.”

“I hope you trip over and die on your way to the classroom,” Riku said, an affectionate smile on his face. He spun around to Kairi. “Well, I guess I’d better fuck off, then. Thanks for abandoning me, loser.”

Kairi nodded. “You are most surely welcome.”

“Enjoy extra time with the high as fuck art teachers.”

“Enjoy walking home alone, Riku Naemates.”

“Watch yourself, little girl.” He gave her a high five which turned into a lame-cool-guy handshake which turned into one of those awkward half-hug arms things. He smiled halfheartedly and headed for the front door. Kairi watched him go, then set off up the main stairs.

Kairi was proud of herself for successfully making it through the second day back. The first day was okay by her because the teachers didn’t really do anything and none of it seemed real yet. None of them were such monsters that they gave out homework on the first day, they were too busy with refresher lessons and icebreakers. Hell, her biology teacher had spent the whole period getting everyone to tell the class their opinions on Galvanic reanimation (while passing around the magic frog carcass, as only the holder was allowed to speak, of course.) That was great. That was just time-killing bullshit. The second day, though? Nope. That was when the iron fists started cracking down, when she started hearing phrases like, “You’re S4 now, and you need to start acting like it!” 

Mr Eraqus had almost assigned homework. She could feel it, she had senses for these things. He was going to tell them to read another inane scene from fucking Macbeth, and she was pleading him not to with her eyes, and praying to whatever deities might exist that something, God, anything would stop him before he ruined her free time.

And fuck, Kairi was seriously thinking about converting to something, because just in the nick of time- just in those last two minutes of the period- Headmaster Mouse had walked in and grabbed Mr Eraqus aside to talk about the new curriculum. She could have sworn she saw the headmaster shoot the class a wink as the bell dismissed them.

But yeah. Tomorrow would be the third day back, perish the thought, that was even worse than the second. There was no way she could dodge assigned reading for another day. Eraqus would play dirty- tell them to do it at the start of class instead of the end. It would take masterful derailment to stop him, and a lot more coordination than her class full of dumb fifteen year old boys was capable of.

She didn’t have to think about that yet, though. She was taking it one day at a time and she was doing just fine. The second day, which was a true test of her willpower not to scream, had been defeated, and she was one day closer to the October holidays, and about a minute away from what was essentially another art class.

Kairi loved art. From the moment her twelve year old self had been handed modelling clay for the first time, her heart had locked onto sculpting and refused to let go. Painting and drawing and all that was okay too, but like, it wasn’t as tangible. With clay, the things she could make had height and depth and life in them. She could make and break worlds as she moulded and shaped- it was the only power rush she’d ever need.

Understandably, for this reason, Art was sort of her favourite subject. Not to mention the teachers, of course, they were lovely, if a bit…odd. She felt a lot of people didn’t give them enough credit, just dismissed them as total weirdos, but once you got to know them, they were really sweet. And they were cool with kids chewing gum in class. Which was legendary.

She pushed the pull door, then pulled it and entered the art department. Sat in the first classroom was a busy cluster of kids, most a little older than her but a good few her age or younger. The seniors were mostly sat around one table that was far too small for all of them but that wasn’t a problem, because the teacher in charge was Goofy, who honestly did not give a shit as long as everyone was happy. Goofy had a last name- Coleman or some shit. He even had a first name. But nope, to his students, he was just Goofy. Fine.

Sat at the end of the classroom, at a table all alone, there she was: Naminé. She looked content to be by herself as always, scribbling away at a sheet of paper with a red crayon. The rest of the pack of crayolas was spread all out over her desk, some of which had even fallen to the floor. Her blonde hair flooped in front of her face, but in Kairi’s opinion it just made her look all the more cute. Nobody was giving her shit now, which was good. Most of the kids who did that didn’t take art. There were a couple of aggressively straight boys a few metres away from her, but at that particular moment they were busy marking their territory by drawing dicks all over the table.

Belle looked up from her book as the door swung shut behind Kairi. She grinned and ran over.

“Thank God you’re here. Adam and Cindy bailed, so you’re the only friend I have.”

She looked pretty today, and ready to work, with her hair tied up in a messy bun and an apron on over her blazer. She was a year older than Kairi, but they’d become fast friends when they realised they were both Warrior Cats fans way back in Kairi’s first year. Belle was kind of like a cool big sister, she thought, a cool big sister who was always had new recommendations for reading material.

“Come on,” Kairi smiled, “did you really think I’d miss this?” She scoped the room. “Where are we sitting, then?”

What she really meant was something more along the lines of “there is only one place we can sit and I really think we shouldn’t”. All the other seats were taken by the thirty or forty kids in the room, some chairs had even been taken in from other rooms because nobody wanted to sit beside…there were no other spaces, though. 

Naminé’s table.

Kairi’s reasons for avoiding her were different to the others’. Most didn’t like her because she was weird and didn’t understand their jokes. Kairi just didn’t want to bother her or make her feel uncomfortable when she looked so happy to be on her own, unpestered for once.

“Alright!” A fun voice behind her caught her attention, and she spun around to see a familiar smiling face.

Goofy looked at her and Belle, his eyes crinkling with familial affection. “You girls go sit with Naminé, a-hyuck!”

Kairi exchanged a look with Belle. She half expected Naminé to look up in some kind of horror, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. Cautiously, the two wandered over to the other girl’s table. Belle took the seat of the edge, so Kairi sat down in the seat closest to Naminé. The girl kept drawing.

“Good afternoon, kids!” Goofy’s voice rang across the room. “This week I just want y’all to get comfortable with your elbow partners, so there isn’t a prompt for today! Just draw what you wanna draw!”

Kairi was a little disappointed that the modelling clay wasn’t out, but that was hardly at the forefront of her mind. She couldn’t take her gaze off the curtain of fair hair to her right, and the girl behind it. She could feel that Belle was, in turn, looking at her. It was silent- too silent.

Belle slid Kairi a piece of paper and a pencil, with which the girl began to sketch what would probably turn out to be a shitty ref for one of her OCs, because her 2D work really didn’t get too creative. When she looked at Belle’s paper, it was already ridiculously elaborate- she had started on the lineart already, and her sketchlines showed a princely young man adorned with brooches and a cape with a feathered hat, kneeling down in front of a young woman…who had a messy bun and a book in her hand.

Kairi knew her drawing was shitty in comparison, but she didn’t care. That was always going to be the case. Belle lived to draw and read, whereas Kairi drew and read to live through classes. Curiosity (nosiness) still not satisfied, she turned her attention to Naminé.

The wall of hair had shifted when Naminé leant back a little, her face not nearly so close to the page anymore. Kairi took this as an opportunity to see what her elbow partner was drawing.

In the centre of Naminé’s sheet of paper was a drawing of two people, a girl and a boy, holding hands. The girl was blonde, and wore the school uniform with a white skirt instead of a black one. The boy had stupidly spiky hair and wore a woolly cardigan over a white schoolshirt. Kairi knew who they were supposed to be instantly. It was Naminé and Roxas. That made enough sense as they did, after all, go to nurture group together, so they were probably kinda close. Sora would be glad to know Roxas had a friend, she thought.

“I like your drawing,” she said softly.

Naminé looked up like a rabbit caught in headlights.

Kairi mirrored the expression. “Sorry, I-I didn’t mean to-”

“Thank you.” Naminé’s face softened, not into a smile exactly, but into something a little more comfortable. She chewed on her lip for a second. “I-I like drawing. That’s why Miss Mouse got me to go to this club.”

“I can tell you do,” Kairi continued, not exactly sure where she was going. “The detail’s great, I mean, the way you did Roxas’ expression, it’s exactly like he really is.”

“So you could tell it was him.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that.

Naminé smiled. “He’s nice,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “We sometimes draw together when we’re in the same class.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “So Roxas is good at drawing too, then?”

“No.” Naminé picked her crayon back up and got back to shading drawing-Roxas’ hair in a shade of browny-gold. “But he does it anyway. I don’t mind. I still like his pictures.” She put down her crayon again, like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to add another colour or not. Suddenly, she leant over to peer at Kairi’s paper.

Kairi felt herself turning red. Her sketch had turned into one of her old warriorsona, Seapaw, because thinking about Belle so much had given her major nostalgia. She didn’t really like the idea of her crush knowing that she had a Warriors phase. Or anyone knowing that she had a Warriors phase, for that matter.

Naminé was unfazed. “Nice cat,” she said. “Sometimes my mum says I remind her of a cat. I quite like that.” And just like that, she was back to colouring in, now using a darker hue to shade. “Roxas doesn’t like cats. Roxas likes dogs.”

When Naminé spoke, when she let her mind move her mouth along as the thoughts went through her head, it made Kairi feel warm and fuzzy inside. It was hard to start a conversation with Naminé, but once you got there, she didn’t really have a filter, and it was nice to Kairi to just hear someone say what they wanted to be saying, without stopping themselves from being weird or abrupt or whatever.

Naminé was weird and abrupt, and that was entirely part of the reason Kairi liked her.


	4. Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas' life is established.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have Asperger's Syndrome. The autistic experiences in this chapter are based on my own personal experiences and do not reflect the attitudes and difficulties of all autistic people.  
> TW for this chapter: ableism, bullying, slurs.

Roxas hated school.

He hated homework and studying and stupid dumb subjects like Maths that didn’t make sense, and dicky kids who didn’t understand. And the “sympathetic” glances from teachers, which were really just looks of pity he didn’t deserve. He could take care of himself, it was just the staff that needed to learn that: he wasn’t a fucking kitten, dammit, he was a fifteen year old boy.

Most of all, he hated his brother. Fucking Ventus was perfect with his good grades and his immaculate uniform and his boyfriend who was the legitimate head boy of the school. And he didn’t even appreciate it. Roxas would say, “You’re so lucky,” in the morning over breakfast and Ven would snort and say, “Yeah, okay kid, I’m real lucky to be doing four highers and one advanced higher in my fifth year.” And Roxas would be like no, shut up, that was absolutely not the point. Ven could do the social thing. Roxas couldn’t, and it constantly fucked him over.

People did weird things with their faces and voices and expected him to understand that, as if there was some sort of rulebook telling him what every weird crinkling of an eye meant. Somehow he was the odd one because he couldn’t process information as quickly when his surroundings were busy, which seemed reasonable enough to him. Other kids called him stupid because he was inclined to take their stupid jokes too seriously. He was “not sarcastically literate” or, as he liked to call it, he tended to assume people were telling the fucking truth instead of playing their weird mind games.

Wrapped up in his thoughts, he walked through the lunch hall, sighing a little in relief when he was sure his big (three months older!) cousin wasn’t in the vicinity. Third day back, and Sora had already given him the “you doing okay, cuz?” line approximately sixteen hundred times. He didn’t need to be treated like some helpless little kid, and he really didn’t appreciate it, because for all that Sora cared about him, it would be nice to be recognised as a fully functional human being capable of doing things. 

His mind wandered along this tangent for a while longer, eventually brought back to reality when he walked straight into a wall. The wall snorted, shoved him back, glanced to its friends as they laughed. The wall was Xaldin. Fuck.

“So you’re blind as well as r*tarded now?”

“I’m neither of those things.” Roxas steadied himself and started walking again, but someone stepped in front of him. It was Xemnas, and he was smiling, which was supposed to be a good emotion thing, but it scared the shit out of Roxas when Xemnas did it, because for some reason Xemnas always smiled when he was really horrible.

Xemnas tried to lock Roxas’ eyes with his own. The boy squirmed uncomfortably and turned his gaze to the floor. “Stop it,” he mumbled.

“Oh my God.” A new voice- a high pitched, condescending one. Larxene. “What? Looking someone else in the eyes too human for you?”

Marluxia chuckled. “He’s a zombie. Most things are too human for him to accomplish.”

A few among their group made that stupid “ohhh” noise. Roxas really didn’t fucking get that. It served no communicational purpose whatsoever. But you know, whatever! Larxene laughed, and elbowed Demyx so she would do the same. She did, but her laugh was slow, reluctant…reminiscent of the one Roxas always faked at some people’s “humour”.

“Hey, hey Roxas!” Xigbar called. When Roxas looked over, Xigbar stepped closer, and closer, leaning down so he was right in Roxas’ face. Desperately uncomfortable and focused on avoiding eye contact, Roxas was frozen to the spot.

“Roxas,” Xigbar whispered. “You alright, little guy?”

What?

“If you’re not alright, that’s, uh…that’s pretty bad, innit? These guys really have to lay off.” 

Xigbar didn’t talk like that. It was weird and confusing. His face was unreadable, but then again, whose wasn’t? His voice was so soft only Roxas could hear it, so it wasn’t an obvious joke, but something still didn’t seem right.

“I know you think we’re a bunch of dicks, but you’ve gotta know we’re just trying to have some FUN!” On the last word, Xigbar’s voice ascended from a quiet murmur to something even louder than his usual obnoxious squawking: a fully-fledged yell. 

Roxas leapt backwards on impulse, tripping over his own poorly-laced shoes, so there he was on the floor, covering his sensitive ears and trembling. He couldn’t handle sudden noises, so being anything other than completely distrustful of someone like Xigbar was a mistake. His ears ringed, his world going blurry, or rather, the world was fine but his brain was going blurry from the sensory hell. 

Xemnas’ friends pissed themselves at that, of course, one of the bigger ones slapping Xigbar’s back in some weird congratulations. Demyx’s laugh was quiet and shaky, but nobody seemed to notice.

“Zombie…brain…overloaded!” someone called in what Roxas would have, had he been processing information efficiently, assumed was a poor imitation of his own voice.

“He’s vibrating like Marl’s phone after a good night out!”

“Oi, Roxas! You scared? You going to get your big brother on our asses?”

A snort. “Ohhh, I’m sooo scared. Ventus might hairgel us to death!”

Roxas couldn’t make words. He just curled up into himself tighter and tighter until he stopped registering the presence of the group. His breathing grew heavy, his head full of air instead of thoughts, so he couldn’t wonder where the teachers were, the ones who should have been supervising the lunch hall.

A usually calm and cool voice, now sounding rather ruffled: “Alright, guys, we’re going a little far here.”

“What the tits, Axel?”

Axel’s hair was like Sonic the hedgehog except a lot more red. Seriously, he was worse than Ventus. Roxas did not look up at his voice- Axel was another asshole, no different from the white noise of shit he was currently trying to block out.

“What the hell, dude?” Larxene asked. “You like this kid or something?”

“Shut up,” he told her. “All I’m saying is there’s a point where it stops being funny and just becomes sad. You can’t just yell in his face, y’know? He’s…” The trail off was kind of synonymous with Roxas at that point.

Xaldin stood up. “He’s what?”

“He’s, y’know, uh…he’s got Asperger’s, so-”

Xigbar scoffed. “Here we fucking go.”

“Just chill a little, okay?” Axel barked. “Like, just lay off him for now. There’s no point in traumatising some random fourth year, and you could totally get in trouble.”

“Oh, fuck off, Ax-”

“Axel’s right,” Xemnas sighed. “We don’t need to draw attention to ourselves as soon as the school year starts.”

Axel nodded vigorously. “Yeah. So why don’t you all go, like, smoke behind the bike sheds or something, and I’ll catch up in a minute?”

Mumbles of unsureness filled the air, but over the course of the next minute, Xemnas and his gang fucked off to slink somewhere less crowded, as suggested. Axel stood awkwardly, hands in pockets, watching Roxas: the kid was a mess, with his shaking and the way he was trying to protect his ears so hard that he hadn’t even noticed his change in company.

It was a few moments before Axel decided he had to say something.

First he scoped the area to make sure nobody was really watching. Then he bent down and tapped the kid’s shoulder. When he was not graced with a response, he repeated the action.

Roxas opened his eyes and looked up slowly. It was Axel, and that was not a good thing. Axel was loud, rude and far too confusing for Roxas’ liking. He was well-integrated into the intricacies and nuances of social interaction crap, and he flaunted it like hell. He wanted to turtle up again, but he knew fine that if Axel wanted something, he wasn’t going to leave Roxas alone until he got it.

Slowly, apprehensively, Roxas uncovered his ears.

“Relax, kid. I’m not gonna scream in your face if that’s what you’re wondering.”

That was blunt. Unless there was some weird reverse psychology shit going on here, Roxas decided to trust him- at least not to make big noises.

“I got them off your ass,” Axel continued. “You’re welcome.”

“Y-y…” Roxas shook his head. Words were hard. “You’re welcome?” he repeated after a moment.

Axel smiled. “You bet you are. In fact, don’t even thank me. It’s cool.”

“…I don’t need your help,” Roxas said quietly.

Axel cocked his head aside. “Huh?”

“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!” he whisper-yelled. 

Roxas wished for this conversation to be over so he could try to forget this ever happened already. Just this once, fate seemed to be on his side, because the bell rang. It was jarring, and it made him even more unsteady, so when he forced himself to his feet he was shaking like anything. RE- that was his next class. He stumbled off in its direction, leaving Axel looking and feeling kind of stupid.

-

It was his first RE class of the school year, so the seating plan was allocated. His classmates were kids he already knew, largely assholes, and unfortunately, none of them were Naminé. He huffed, ready and waiting for another class where he was going to spend the year ignoring everyone.

However, something weird happened. When he trudged over and sat in the seat Mr Donald had assigned him, the girl sitting to his left had a face that wasn’t attached to a name in his mental Who’s Who of the school. She had papers of all sorts spread over her deskspace, mostly timetables but other notable entries included a copy of the school dresscode and the rules handbook.

She wore a skirt, and underneath that, woolly black tights. She looked a little like Naminé or Sora’s friend Kairi in the face, even with similarly blue eyes, but her hair was dark and cropped short. Her face had an expression something like panic.

When she saw him, she started talking, fast and kind of unclear. “Hey! Sorry. I’m new here and, uh, my next class is in the…’Safety Net Room’? Do you know where that is?” She gestured to the sixth period block on her timetable and, sure enough, it read: Nurture Group, Safety Net Room. 

This Nurture Group functioned as a support system for autistic pupils. In spite of his incredibly shitty day, he almost smiled. She was like him. For once he wasn’t going to be the only one in the fucking class. 

Roxas wasn’t used to strangers, but there was something about this one that…stunned him into acceptance of her? He looked for words, and this time they did not run away. “I’m in there next period, too. You can walk with me if you want.”

“Th-that would be really good!” The girl laughed, obviously a bundle of nerves. “My name’s Xion. What’s yours?”

“I’m Roxas.”

“Nice to meet you, Roxas!”

Somewhere in the classroom, there were sniggers. “Aw, would you look at that,” called one voice, “the zombie and the ghoul are making friends!” The others laughed, but Roxas and Xion didn’t notice. They were already wrapped up in a conversation along the lines of so-when-were-you-diagnosed and do-you-have-a-special-interest?


	5. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casual ableist words happen here so be careful

Sora lacked willpower to the point that he had to hold his own hands together to keep himself from grabbing Roxas by the shoulders and hugging him for a year.

When Tiana told him what happened the previous day, he flipped- almost literally, his muscles itching with some newly-found adrenaline or energy or something, and whatever it was, it wanted him to deck Xemnas and his idiots. Sora was pissed, and no matter how much Kairi and Riku tried to calm him down, they weren’t going to succeed.

“He went right to his next class, man,” Kairi pointed out. “He’s not a helpless little kid. He handled it.”

Sora shook his head. “It’s not like that. It could have been worse,” he said. “Rox could have been having a bad day, or they could have gone further- and trust me, they would go further, the idiots-”  
“We know, Sora-”  
“And I swear to God, if they ever touch him again, even a little, I’m going to kill them.”  
“Sora.” He felt Kairi’s hand on his shoulder, a comforting pressure. “You know they’d deserve every bit of it, but you need to calm down a little, okay?” She tried a small smile. “Freaking out and getting all confrontational isn’t going to help anyone. If anything, it’ll just cause Roxas more trouble. Right, Riku?”

Riku, who had been looking semi-conscious, didn’t exactly come to life- he still looked bored as he looked Sora over. “I just wish you two would stop talking about it. If one of Xemnas’ idiots hears you, we’ll get in shit.”

Kairi shot him a look, but she sighed. “He’s kinda right, y’know.”

Sora slumped on the table. “If it was your cousin, you’d understand,” he muttered. “Like, not even just the family thing. I’ve been watching people tread all over Roxas all our lives, and it hurts to see him like that.”

“Except,” Riku said, “you didn’t see him like that. Tiana did. What they did was shitty, but please can you just not stress too much? You can’t take on Xemnas’ creepy fucking…organisation all by yourself.”

 

“I can,” grumbled Sora.  
“Seriously, guys, look.” Kairi pointed to the next table over, where Axel sat down, eagerly followed by Demyx, then waved over the rest of the group.

The boys grimaced, and she nodded. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Riku groaned. “Okay. And fuck, I could talk about this all day, okay: today in Maths we were revising, and then Miss Daisy just starts talking about this vector shit and I’m like ‘what the fuck’ because we so didn’t cover that last year-”

“Sora, what are you doing?!”  
Riku stopped his story in its tracks and looked up. Kairi’s interruption was, indeed, justified, as Sora was making his way over to the other table, fists balled, tense from head to toe. A few had spotted him. Marluxia was already laughing.

Every organ in Riku’s body jumped the wrong way. “Idiot!” he hissed through his teeth, moving to stand beside Kairi. The two watched in horror as the scene unfolded in front of them, occasionally looking to each other and scrambling, whispering debates about whether or not they should do something.

Sora stopped right beside Xemnas’ chair and the air between them seemed to liquefy. Xemnas’ smirk was replaced with a very obviously staged look of boredom. Sora did not attempt to hide his feelings, and that spoke for itself- he stared, unblinking, right into Xemnas’ eyes, perhaps only a foot away, which was approximately a hundred times closer than he’d get on a usual day.

“Stay away from Roxas,” he said, his words spat out and as spiky as his hair. “If I ever hear you’ve so much as touched him, I’ll-”

“You’ll get real mad,” Axel finished. “You’ll come over to our table at lunch and tell us what horrible people we are. You might even go to the office and say we’re bullying him, and we’ll get, what, three days’ detention? I mean, wow, Sora. You’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Demyx laughed, running her hand through her hair. It was a brittle noise, like old bones. “Yeah. I’m so scared of you, Sora,” she said, and when no-one laughed, she shrunk into herself a little more. 

Xemnas simply turned back to the slice of pizza one of his cronies had sneaked for him and took a bite. “Go away,” he said, uncaring.

“I’m not going to go away until you promise you won’t hurt him anymore.” Sora felt his face grow hot. Deep down, some part of him knew how completely useless it was to try and reason with them, but that was who he was- while he was certainly agile and a competent fighter when he had to be, he was nonviolent at heart, and a fight with anything more than words wasn’t something he would actively seek out.

The thing about Xemnas was that he was actually pretty fucking smart when he wanted to be. He was capable of reasoning. He was opinionated, he had ideals and morals and all kinds of complex and interesting arguments on all kinds of things- science, philosophy, literature (all things that rather went over Sora’s head), but most of the time he just didn’t care. It was like dialogues were beneath him unless they were with someone he respected, and when Xemnas respected someone, they were usually a) dead and/or b) from the other side of the world.

He wasn’t brainless. He wasn’t refusing to listen to Sora out of some primal predisposition towards brawn, although he certainly wasn’t lacking in it. He simply didn’t give a shit- Sora was too insignificant for him, and Sora knew that perfectly well.

Xemnas said nothing this time.

In a fit of frustration, the worst Sora’s peaceful heart could will his hands to do was to knock the pizza out of Xemnas’ hands. And at first, Xemnas still didn’t give a shit- just a slice of pizza. Something eleven idiots would happily buy him any day of the week. His facial expression was, for the first half a second, completely unbothered. 

No, it was after that half a second had passed that his eyes went dangerous, metamorphosing from an almost gentle amber to a sweltering electric yellow. The colour didn’t even change- it didn’t have to. Xemnas’ face set the tone for his eyes, and he was pissed.

He looked around at Sora. “Do you think,” he snarled, “that you have the right to do that to me?”

Sora gulped down some air, trying to force his brain to kick into gear, essentially yelling at himself, “Quick! Think of a witty comeback!” to no avail. His fists shook and wavered slightly, the littlest fingers of each hand trying to uncurl, but he clenched and kept them in place. He was going to stand his ground.

With a nod from Vexen, Larxene and Lexaeus pushed their chairs out behind themselves and stood up. They towered over Sora, despite the fact that they only had one and two years respectively over on him. Larxene’s eyes were serpentine and sadistic, while Lexaeus’ were, as always, unreadable. Faced with two people, one so viciously nimble and the other so…huge, a chill ran down Sora’s spine, but he didn’t care. He could take whatever they wanted to throw at him, he decided.

“Oh my God,” Kairi said unhappily, clutching Riku’s forearm a little tighter. “They’re gonna kill him. We have to do something.”

“What, make them kill us, too?! Are you fucking crazy?”

“You’re such a coward!” she cried, dropping her hold on him in frustration. “But fine! If you don’t care enough to save him from having his ass kicked, I’ll be the good friend!” She half-jogged over to Sora so she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. 

Riku facepalmed.

“Oh?” Luxord said, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “Would you look at that! He brought a pal along.”

Kairi shot him a look. “Yeah, and she’s telling you to back off!”

Everyone at the table erupted in laughter, except Lexaeus, who was technically standing up and therefore not at the table, and in any case not much of a talker. Demyx just stared blankly into space for a moment, but then she joined in, imitating Larxene’s cackle although she was staring at the way Axel’s throat moved with the low rumble of his laugh.

“Unbelievably,” Xigbar started, “we don’t really care what you’re telling us to do.”

Marluxia nodded smugly. “And besides, your boyfriend started it.”

“Not my boyfriend,” she said. “And yeah, he’s an idiot, but he’s just coming back to our table now. Isn’t that right, Sora?” She jerked him backwards, but like a statue he refused to be moved.

“Not until they promise to lay off Roxas,” he said.

She tugged on his sleeve again and grinded her teeth. She leant in right close to his ear. “You know that’s not going to happen. Come on.”

Xaldin crackled his knuckles and stood up too, now, wandering over to Sora and Kairi almost nonchalantly. “You understand there are twelve of us and two of you, right?” he commented, placing a hand on Kairi’s shoulder.

She shuddered, trying to shrug his hand off. “Get off me,” she muttered, her face drawn up into a wince.

He sneered, and tightened his grasp. “Two tiny little fourth years really think they can handle fucking with the big kids?”

“Seriously, get off her!” Sora said, reaching out a hand to grab Xaldin’s arm, but his own forearm was grabbed in midair. Larxene’s slender fingers were wrapped around his wrist now, and he felt Lexaeus grabbing him by the back of the collar. Weakly, he wondered why there had to be no teachers in the lunch hall, and braced himself to get hit.

“Uh, hey, guys?” That was Riku’s voice. Kairi snapped her head in the direction of the sound and sure enough, there he was, arms folded, chest puffed out, staring Xaldin dead in the eyes.

Riku put on a little smile. “Uh, hey. You see, you kind of seem to have my dweebs, and I’d like you to give ‘em back.”

Xaldin smirked a little. “Finders keepers.”

“Yeah, but you see, I’m kind of lonely without those two and you guys already have all the company you need, so if you could just return Kairi and Sora to my care, that’d be great.”

Kairi scowled. Riku smiled brightly back at her.

Larxene squinted at him. “Do you really think we’re gonna let them go just because you said so?”

He barked a laugh. “Fuck no. I’m not an idiot, for God’s sake, I’m taking Higher Maths. Nah, it’s just that once you let them go, I’ll stop bothering you and we can all go off and eat our lunch in peace.” A moment of silence. “Alright, fuck. I’ll pay for a replacement slice of goddamn pizza. Is that good enough for you?”

Xemnas let out a short breath. “Don’t waste your time on them,” he ordered. “We have better things to spend time on.”

Reluctantly, Larxene, Lexaeus and Xaldin unhanded the kids, shooting them daggers before returning to their chairs. Kairi and Sora sighed a little in relief- she looked back and nodded at Riku, while he just stared at his feet. 

“Pizza money?” Luxord prompted.

“Ugh.” Riku dug into his pocket and threw a one pound coin at him. “Enjoy your cheesy cardboard.” At this point, Riku took both of his friends firmly by the backs of their shirts and dragged them back over to the table where they’d been sat before.

“Well done, Sora,” he said with a mocking smile. “It’s the fourth day of school and you’ve already attracted the most unwanted attention possible!”


	6. Dancing with the Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Sorry. It's been way too long. But you know how it is, right? Life kind of happened. I'll try to start updating this again but no promises.
> 
> This chapter is boring, boring, boring. But it establishes something I guess? Plus, it's in the plan so I can't not write it or my brain will be like, "STOP SKIPPING STUFF YOU FOOL."
> 
> Oh and also!! Trans experiences in this story are based on my experiences as a trans person. If they don't align with your experiences, I guess I'm sorry.

“Alright! First meeting of the school dance committee is now in session!”

*

Kairi wasn’t entirely sure why she’d joined. It wasn’t like it was totally out of the ordinary for her. She loved getting involved in things of an extracurricular persuasion, especially this kind of thing. When she’s seen the sign-up sheet for organising the Halloween Dance, it had just seemed like a really good idea, and that was that.

Riku wasn’t pleased. “They meet after school every Friday,” he had said in something like disbelief.

Kairi nodded. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” he repeated. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? Fucking…’yeah’?”

Kairi paused. “Um…yeah,” she decided, giggling like a toddler.

“I think it’s cool,” Sora chimed in. “I mean, planning the dance and stuff? Kairi’s gonna have more power than she should ever have.”

“Shut up!” she laughed.

Riku didn’t join in. “You,” he addressed Kairi pointedly, turning his body to her and thus somewhat excluding Sora, “are going to leave me alone to walk home with this knucklehead? Just the two of us? Every Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“Without you.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You can’t leave me with Sora, man,” he said, although he let a little smile show through as a hint he was just kidding around.

Kairi folded her arms. “Trust me, I think Sora’ll live with it.”

“What do you even mean by that, Kairi?” Sora said, eyes widening in a facial expression that communicated ‘cease-and-desist’.

“Nothing,” she said, innocently batting her eyelashes.

So that happened, and now here she was at the table, discussing what to do for the Halloween dance with the rest of the committee, which consisted of Mulan, Aerith, Aladdin, Belle...and Demyx.

This was not set up to be a fun committee.

Why would Xemnas' weird "organisation" send someone to the dance committee? Didn't they have bigger fish to fry, like bullying first year students into giving up their lunch money, or for that matter trying to hide the fact that Xemnas was even in the school building from the teachers?

Kairi must have been staring, because Demyx blinked and tried to look menacing. "S-something wrong, uh...Kairi?"

Kairi gave a kind of confused half-smile. "Don't your ilk have other things...better things to do?"

Demyx snorted a breathy laugh that was probably supposed to sound smug but instead made her sound like she was choking on her own tongue. "Well, if you must know, the dance happens to be the location for some major operations!" she said, almost looking proud of herself for a moment.

Kairi nodded slowly. "Operations." There really was no getting through to these people that they were just high schoolers, not freakin' drug traffickers or whatever.

Demyx's voice got a lot quieter. "Besides, I kind of like parties and stuff..."

Right, so the "organisation" didn't know she was here. That explained a lot.

Aladdin looked between the two nervously. "Look, uh, maybe we should get thinking about the dance?"

"I agree," Belle said, giving Kairi a little nudge. She looked down at her clipboard, making her look way too much like an authority figure, so Kairi shut up.

"Alright, easy stuff first," said Mulan. "Are we doing fancy dress or regular party clothes?"

"Fancy dress," Kairi said like it was obvious, at the exact same time that Demyx said "regular party clothes."

Kairi stared at the organisation member in disbelief. "Oh, come on!" she exclaimed, laughing at the ridiculousness. "It's Halloween. We need fancy dress. Duh."

Demyx frowned. "We're teenagers now, right? And getting together a costume is so much effort..."

"Being older doesn't mean we have to stop having fun," Kairi said. "In fact, the opposite. Life's getting shittier and stressier, so we need to have as much fun as we can."

Demyx scoffed. And then, after a few seconds had passed, she scoffed again. "C'mon, Kairi, nobody else agrees with you...right?"

Aladdin opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.

Belle laid her hands on the table gently. "We can settle this with a vote. All in favour of fancy dress, hands up?"

Five hands went up: Kairi, Belle, Mulan, Aerith, Aladdin. Demyx gasped like she'd been betrayed.

Belle nodded and scribbled on her clipboard. "And all in favour of regular party clothes?"

Demyx alone put her hand up.

"Well, it's decided," Belle said, with a diplomatic smile. "Sorry, Demyx."

Demyx sank into her chair a bit. "I had an outfit I really wanted to wear."

Kairi felt a little pang of sympathy, weirdly enough. "There's always the Christmas dance for wearing dresses, yeah?"

Demyx looked up for a minute, brow furrowed, then relaxed. "You're right," she mumbled.

I'd like to get that in writing, Kairi thought.

Belle looked pleased. Maybe she was happy that they were getting along, or at least not immediately at each other's throats. "There's no way we can afford a DJ on this budget, so we either get a student or teacher to volunteer, or we set up a playlist on someone's MP3. What do you think would be better?"

"A volunteer," Demyx said immediately, while Kairi in the same moment said, "A playlist."

Aladdin looked at Belle. "Hey, Belle, can I see your clipboard for a second?"

"Sure, why?" She handed it over.

He held the clipboard out in front of him, then in one swift motion lurched forward and hit his head off the thing. He then tossed it back to Belle and put his head down on the table, covering it in his arms.

Mulan raised an eyebrow. "Intense facepalm."

*

Demyx walked out of the first Dance Committee meeting with absolutely none of his ideas being accepted and a sick feeling in his stomach.

The dance stuff mattered to him quite a bit but what really got him was the first decision. Fancy dress? He had been summoning up the courage to wear a suit and now that plan was ruined, all thanks to Kairi and her stupid "fun". The Organisation might enjoy making him wear one of those awful “sexy” women’s costumes and jeering at him for being so “shy”. Maybe he was shy, but it would mostly be the dysphoria upsetting him.

He hated this. He hated everything, hated his dumb ideas and his body and everyone else for not just getting it. It was unfair to expect them to understand without him saying so, but he couldn't bring the words out of his mouth.

How would that go down with the Organisation? "Hey, guys, I'm actually a boy." Hell would break loose. Xemnas would hate it. Maybe one or two would be alright with it, but...worst case scenario, he could end up with Lexaeus' fist in his face.

Weirdly enough, he felt guilty about the idea of telling his friends. Guilty because he'd be leaving Larxene alone as the only girl in the group, and he knew that would suck. Not that everyone would probably even recognise him as male. What was he worrying about? There would be no difference, not practically.

But yeah. He was going to wear boys' clothes in front of people for the first time and that plan had sunk like the Titanic. He was in a bad fucking mood when he met Zexion to walk home together.

"Everything alright?" the other boy asked cautiously.

Demyx shrugged. "Just tired."

Tired was one thing. Trans was a whole other. Imagine coming out like that. _"Just trans,"_ he could have said. " _Just trans and it sucks."_


	7. Just Don't Get It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this sucks and hasn't been proofread. But I figure a shitty chapter is better than no chapter at all? Please tell me if anything makes no sense or is super unclear.

It was Roxas’ second period in the nurture group this year, and Xion’s second ever.

The people weren’t scary to him—it was just him, Naminé, Mrs Mouse (though they had the privilege of being able to call her “Minnie”) and now Xion. But the thing was, Xion was new here, and she didn’t know Naminé or Minnie, so she was very quiet, which probably meant she was very uncomfortable.

She sat next to Roxas of course. Roxas got that. He would do the same if he didn’t already know everyone, or probably actually just sit alone and refuse to talk. Xion was doing better than that—she wasn’t exactly an active participant in conversation, but when she was asked a question, she answered most of the time, and that was good enough. He tried to ask her a lot of questions because he knew he, at least, liked to be included. It took him a few seconds to register that just because he liked it didn't mean she would too.

 _Should I stop?_ he thought for a moment...but no, stopping would do no good. In any case, it was probably best for her to feel included, even if talking was hard.

After the first session he had found it weird how Xion had been able to talk to him so easily but not Naminé and Minnie. She had explained that in her own words "adults are scary" and Roxas agreed, even though in his opinion kids were much scarier.

Second session.

"Hi, kids!" Minnie chirped, coming into the room and shutting the door. "Would anyone like a drink?"

Naminé and Roxas nodded eagerly.

The "classroom" for the Safety Net group had once been an English classroom, but was renovated a couple years ago. It wasn't a traditional classroom: instead of desks and hard wooden chairs it was split into several cosy areas. There was a sitting area with sofas to your left when you walked in, but it was hidden by carefully-placed bookshelves. To your right, there was a big white table for snacks and activities.

Other kids sometimes expressed jealousy for this stuff. Why do the kids who can't behave get the special treatment? Well, Roxas would try to explain (or he used to try, at least), it's not special treatment. It's the support that kids with certain disorders need to function in school. They didn't usually like that answer.

Minnie giggled. "Well, let me guess...a hot chocolate for Naminé?"

Naminé nodded.

"...And a water for Roxas?"

"You got it," Roxas said.

Minnie laughed once again, then put on a less intense smile. "And for you, Xion?"

Xion opened her mouth then closed it again like a lost goldfish. She looked at Roxas for help.

Part of him wanted to shrug and not take responsibility, but most of him wanted to help Xion in any way he could. "What do you want to drink?" he asked. "We have, uh...water, hot chocolate, tea...uh..."

"Orange juice!" Minnie said.

"Orange juice," Roxas said, nodding in acknowledgement.

"Orange juice?" said Xion.

"Orange juice," repeated Roxas. "You want some?"

Xion suddenly looked down, presumably too shy to ask for anything. Roxas looked up at Minnie's face, not quite meeting her eyes, trying to communicate that he needed some help.

"I'll get you an orange juice, is that alright, Xion?"

There was a second of nothing before Xion gave a tiny little nod.

Minnie clasped her hands together, satisfied with her class. "All right, wonderful." She went over to the little mini-kitchen and opened the fridge. "So, how was everyone's weekend?"

No takers.

Roxas thought Minnie was probably holding back a sigh.

"Naminé?" Minnie prompted, sliding a carton of orange juice across the table to Xion.

Xion caught it and nodded her thanks, but her face was still down.

Naminé stood up all of a sudden, and went to a set of drawers on the far side of the room. She rummaged around in one of the drawers for a moment then returned to the table with a piece of paper and a box of crayons. "This weekend my parents took me to the zoo," she said, taking a yellow crayon out of the box and scribbling down a long line. She filled out the line into a thick shape, then added brown spots to what eventually turned out to be the neck of a giraffe. "I quite liked that."

Roxas leant over to see Naminé's picture better, then got up himself, went to the same drawer Naminé had went to and got two sheets of paper and another box of crayons. He went back to the table and kept one sheet for himself but gave the other to Xion.

“Well, that’s just lovely, Naminé,” Minnie said.

“Thank you, Miss Mouse.”

“I’m a Mrs, Naminé! And anyway, you can call me Minnie.”

Naminé said nothing, only kept colouring in her giraffe.

“And what about you, Roxas?”

Roxas picked up the box of crayons and looked in, meticulously searching for the perfect colour, or at least a decent-looking crayon that wasn’t snapped in half. He settled on a nice blue-green colour, like the sea. Before drawing anything, he wrote his name in the corner and sat up straight in his chair, excited with a blank canvas to work with.

He wasn’t much of an artist, but that didn’t stop him. Of course it didn’t. He wasn’t very good at going to school either, but he still did it every day, so why should drawing be any different? It was the only kind of art he could really handle, and it would suck to miss out. His cousin Sora’s best friend, Kairi, was a pretty awesome sculptor, but Roxas didn’t like clay. It felt awful when it formed that weird crust on his skin. Made him want to rip his body apart.

Still, he took the nice sea-coloured crayon and started scribbling, hand unsteady, but with plenty of enthusiasm. “I talked to my brother this weekend. He says we can go to the beach sometime soon, if it’s still sunny.”

He got focused very quickly on filling in all the white gaps in his picture, which was near impossible with a crayon’s width but he was trying anyway. He was a little unaware of everything but the drawing until he heard a noise—a cute little laugh coming from beside him.

He looked up. Xion looked embarrassed.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

Xion shifted in her seat but after a few seconds her smile came back. “You stick your tongue out when you’re concentrating,” she whispered.

He felt his cheeks go hot, but he was smiling too.

*

Roxas and Xion left the Safety Net room at the end of the period and went downstairs for lunch. When they got into the lunch hall, Roxas saw Axel standing alone, presumably waiting for the rest of his ilk.

He realised he had stopped to stare when Xion stepped in front of him asking, "Something wrong?"

Roxas blinked hard and shook his head. "Just...I know that guy, I guess, kind of."

Xion followed his gaze and laughed.

He  frowned. "What?"

"He looks like red Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Roxas smiled and shook his head. _I'm pretty sure I've thought those exact words._

Roxas thought a little bit about Axel, squinting into thin air to try and get the memory straight. Axel had helped him escape the wrath of the "Organisation", and what had Roxas done in return? He'd got mad at him. "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!" or something.

And that was still true. Roxas didn't need help. But maybe when he was telling Axel that, he should have been a little politer.

"Is everything okay?" Xion asked.

Roxas shook his head, not really as a means of response to her question, just because he was starting to get a little overhwhelmed. "I need to talk to him," he said slowly, thinking through each word. With that, he set off in Axel's direction.

Every step he took felt floaty, his head full of air as he approached the older boy. This could go bad, but he had something he needed to say.

Xion scampered along behind him, but when he reached Axel she hung back a few metres.

Axel must have not noticed Roxas at first, or maybe he was pretending not to see him. Either way, Roxas had to say "excuse me" exactly four times before he got a response in the form of Axel raising his eyebrows and twisting his mouth into a new shape, then saying, "What is it?"

Roxas looked back at Xion, who, even though she had no idea what was happening, gave something of a smile in an attempt to reassure him.

"Well," Roxas said. "I just kind of wanted to say, uh...sorry."

"Sorry?"

"For yelling at you," he clarified. "I shouldn't have. You were only trying to help."

Sometimes in movies, when people apologise, they hold out their hand for a handshake. Roxas did that.

Axel looked thoughtfully at Roxas' outstretched hand and scoffed. But slowly, just when Roxas was about to awkwardly give up, he reached out and clasped the boy's hand in his own.

"It's oka-"

"Axel," said a voice, so Roxas looked up. Saix had showed up, had somehow appirated or something to Axel's right. "What's going on here?"

Roxas could recognise tones of voice in a certain way. He didn't know what emotions they represented or anything, but he could tell when a voice went up and down, he wasn't tone deaf. Saix's voice never did that; it was consistently the same deep rumble of nothingness.

Axel gritted his teeth and pulled his hand away from Roxas'. "I was just gonna-"

"Axel?" Larxene was here too, now. She looked at Roxas and wrinkled her nose. "What are you doing with the zombie?"

Roxas looked to the right, and then the left. There was nothing of note to the right, but to the left he could see a few more of Xemnas' lot: Marluxia, Xigbar, Zexion and Demyx. They were coming closer and closer, not quite crashing into the conversation like a tidal wave, more like a very intense trickle.

Axel grabbed Roxas' hand by the wrist. "And if you ever try something like that again, I'll end you. Got it memorised?"

Roxas didn't understand. Before the others had arrived, Axel had been much less aggressive. His skin crawled where Axel was touching him, and this time it was his turn to pull his hand away. He turned around and walked away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Yeah, was just teaching him a little lesson," he heard Axel say in the distance.

"Didn't you say we should leave him alone?"

"He came up and he was all in my face, you know? I had to do something!"

Roxas didn't know how he could have possibly been "in Axel's face" or what that really meant. Was Axel exaggerating? Or lying, maybe? Whatever the difference was.

Xion ran a little to catch up with Roxas. "Are you okay?"

He slumped himself down at the nearest table, and she took a seat beside him. The table was shiny and red, just like Axel's hair.

"I just don't get it," Roxas sighed. "He helped me last time, and now he's acting like this?"

Xion paused. "Is it okay if I touch you?"

He took a minute to think, then nodded. He felt her hand pat his arm gently, three times.

"People are scary," she said. "That's why I don't trust them...people who aren't like us, I mean."

Roxas wondered what she meant by "people like us". Autistic? Friendly? Something else?

"Maybe it's best if we give that guy some space."

Roxas looked at her and, although he felt like shit, smiled in almost a defeated manner. "Yeah," he agreed. "You're probably right."


	8. The Bluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is proofreading?

Sometimes Kairi would bring playing cards to school and she, Sora and Riku would sit around a table playing Scabby Queen over lunch. Sometimes their other friends would join in, or rather, Belle would join in because they didn't exactly have other friends, plural. Today was one of those days.

Now, the rules of Scabby Queen are relatively simple: you take out all the Queens except one, you try and collect "pairs" of cards by taking cards from one another and the person left at the end with the Queen loses.

Three cards left. Everyone was safe, except Belle, who had the three of something, and Sora, who had the three of clubs and the Queen of spades. It was Belle's turn to pick from Sora.

Time seemed to stand still. This wasn't just any game, this was Kairi's Forefeit Scabby Queen, where the loser had to do something weird at the winner's request. Sora really didn't fucking want to have to like, confess his love to Goofy in front of the class or something, so Belle losing in his place was the only option.

As Belle reached out to take a card from him, he contemplated whether or not to use some good ol' reverse psychology, and cling tightly to the Queen of spades so Belle would think it was the three and take it. That would buy him some time. But she might second-guess his strategy and take the real three instead. In which case he should cling tightly to the three so she'd think it was the Queen and take the other card, the real Queen, unless she was expecting that strategy too, in which case...this was getting a little too complicated.

There was no time to think and his brain was starting to vibrate, so he decided to just rely on good ol' luck. Belle's fingers were ten centimetres away. He couldn't tell yet which card she was going to take from him, the Queen or the three. Five centimetres.

No centimetres.

Her fingers danced between the two cards, as if she was using them to sense which one she needed with weird alien finger-feelers, but in the end she settled on one. The three. She plucked it out of his hand and added it to her own, then dropped her cards to the table happily.

"Pair!" she declared. "Which means, Sora..."

Kairi laughed, choking on her chocolate milk. "You're the Scabby Queen!" she said between coughs.

"Damn right he's a queen." Sora jumped at the new voice from behind him. It was Larxene, her sentence snaking into his ears like a threat.

Riku rolled his eyes. "Here we go."

Sora turned around in his chair to look at Larxene. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Marluxia had sauntered over from the "Organisation" table. "She's calling you gay, gayboy."

Belle snorted. "Oh yeah, because you're totally one to talk."

Xigbar and Xaldin arrived next, standing behind Kairi, each of them placing a hand on her shoulder and making her jump. The rest of their lot came quickly afterwards, with Xemnas arriving last and rather grandly, somehow. When he walked over from his table, a Red Sea of first years parted to let him through, like he was God, which he basically was.

Their table surrounded by twelve assholes in uniform black hoodies, there was nowhere to run. The only option was to stand their ground. Kairi frantically shoved her playing cards back in the box, keen to get them out of sight, away from the risk of being stolen or thrown away by these dickheads. However, in doing so, she left her chocolate milk unattended on the table. A hand, Zexion's, reached out and knocked it over.

Kairi was still in the middle of trying to collect her cards when the tsunami of chocolate milk washed over them, soggifying them instantly. Her jaw dropped open, and she turned to glare at the boy. "Why?!" she demanded through gritted teeth.

"Why not?" Axel said, and she could practically hear the smug smile on his face. "You left it there, after all."

"Look, what do you want?" asked Riku, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples.

Sora was trying to stay chill. He knew getting angry would only make them angrier, and then things would be worse for everyone. Maybe even Roxas. Oh, he definitely didn’t want to get Roxas involved, poor kid had already had enough at the hands of these idiots—

“It’s about your cousin,” Zexion said matter-of-factly.

_What?!_

Sora stood up abruptly, pushing his chair out in the process. “What’d you just say?” he half-snarled, pushing through the “Organisation” until he was face to face with Zexion.

“Sora, cool it,” Riku warned.

“What have you done to him?” asked Sora in a tone that was calmer on the surface, but he was sure his friends would know that was only superficial and he was still _pissed off_ and ready to pounce at any second.

Demyx laughed, quiet and awkward as ever. “We haven’t done anything…loser!”

A few exasperated sighs came from the “Organisation” members—mostly the Mega Assholes, like Xigbar and Xaldin.

“Yeah,” Zexion said over the sighs. “Roxas is the one who’s done something!”

Demyx nodded and opened her mouth to speak but Zexion clamped his hand over her mouth.

“What?” Sora asked. “Roxas doesn’t do anything to you, you just harass him for no reason.”

“Maybe before, but not now,” Larxene said, leaning down and putting her hand on the table.

Demyx made a muffled noise, then pushed Zexion’s hand off her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “Because Roxas totally threatened my boy Axel the other day!”

There was a moment of quiet before Riku said, “What, you can’t handle Roxas?”

“It’s the principle of it,” Xemnas said, and suddenly eleven heads all snapped around to face him. “We cannot allow ourselves to be seen as intimidated in the slightest.”

“So what are you here for?” asked Kairi, a little unsure.

Xigbar nodded at Sora. “He’s going to answer for Roxas’ actions.”

Kairi made a noise a bit like a gasp or a scoff, but a little more outraged. “What, _Sora_ has to answer for Roxas’ actions? They’re not the same person! That’s so ignorant, it’s just because Roxas is—”

“Relax, Kairi,” Sora said, agitated. “I’ve got this.”

-

Okay, so this lie was getting a little out of hand, Axel would admit.

The Organisation seeing him with Roxas was just about the worst thing that could have happened. He didn’t know what he was thinking, shaking the boy’s hand when he knew full and well that his friends could have been around the corner ready to spot him at any minute. God, what had he been thinking?

So he’d lied. He’d lied because the other option was losing face, and in the Organisation, losing face could mean losing your place in the food chain and becoming regular old chum like the rest of the school body. He had no qualms with lying, not really. See, the problem this time was that he hadn’t lied well enough, hadn’t thought out the consequences. Axel rarely panicked, but in that moment, with Saix and Larxene and the others scrutinising him as he had Roxas’ hand in his, it just came out all wrong.

“He came up and he was all in my face.” What a stupid thing to say. Roxas was no threat. He had to play his cards very carefully after that, saying no, he wasn’t afraid of Roxas, it’s just that the boy had threatened him and he had seen it as necessary for the integrity of the Organisation to fight back…all bullshit, of course.

And now he was here, with his friends, in a full-on surround-and-destroy operation, swarming Sora’s table because apparently Sora was responsible for Roxas’ alleged crime. Axel wasn’t entirely sure if that was for the best or not—picking on Roxas could get them in more trouble, of course, that was probably part of the reason they went to Sora instead. But Sora was more of a fighter. What a pain.

Xemnas had given Axel specifically the mission to “scare them straight”. That meant talking real big, saying things he’d do if Roxas tried anything again, even though Roxas had done nothing the first time. An utter mess, really. So he pushed past his friends, pushed past Zexion, and bent down to sneer in Sora’s face.

“You better keep the little zombie away from us, y’know, Sora,” he said in a low tone, with the kind of grin that he hoped suggested this was no big deal to him. “Because if he gets himself in too much trouble, he could find himself in a lot of trouble. Like, thrown-in-a-river trouble.”

The next few seconds were a bit of a blur. It was like they happened in slow motion, but Axel’s brain was working in such slow motion that it still seemed too fast to comprehend. Still, he was able to catch a few of the details because damn did they stand out.

First, Sora’s eyes narrowed. The angry slants of his eyebrows became even more intense. His nostrils flared, and he took a deep breath. An almost primal growl escaped the boy’s lips as he bared his teeth, clenched his fist and—

Pain. Somewhere between dull and sharp, spreading right through his nose and the surrounding area of his face. Immediately the sensation of hot blood running from his nostrils. Putting his hand to it, instinctively, before:

“Why you little…” he growled.

He balled his right fist and sent it flying towards Sora’s face. The boy was knocked back from the force, but recovered quickly and launched a punch at Axel’s shoulder.

“Guys, stop!” Kairi said, her voice barely covering how bad she was freaking out. She wasn’t the only one either; even the Organisation members were shuffling uncomfortably and glancing over their shoulders. Axel could see that, but Xemnas hadn’t told him to stop, so he just kept throwing hits.

“Alright, hold it right there!” shouted an affected, high-pitched man’s voice. When neither of them stopped, Mr Mouse appeared, at first in Axel’s peripheral vision, then marching right up between him and Sora and holding them each at an arm’s length. “I said hold it!” he reminded them sternly.

Sora seemed to come out of a trance, looking shocked, then hung his head.

Axel couldn’t keep himself from feeling a tiny bit of shame, but he didn’t show it, just turned to Xemnas and grinned through the blood running down his face as Mr Mouse marched them off to the office.

*

Riku and Kairi exchanged a look, their thoughts so in sync they were able to utter a single word in unison:

“Fuck.”


	9. Interrogation Time with Mr Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the worst chapter so far,in terms of quality, but it serves a purpose I guess.
> 
> Maybe one day I'll go back and edit these, because I am literally just posting unedited first drafts at the moment. I don't really have the energy to do much more than that. Sorry.

Both boys needed some medical attention after their fight—nothing serious, the worst was Axel’s broken nose. Because they had to be treated, though, it was the morning of the very next day when they were forced to the headmaster’s office for a “little talk”.

Headmaster Mouse was short, thin and shaky. He was a kind man, and that was what made it so hard. He didn’t get angry, he got disappointed, and even though Axel played it cool, there was a twinge of _something_ in his heart when he looked at Mr Mouse’s big, sad eyes.

They were sitting on shitty plastic chairs and waiting outside the office for Mr Mouse to be done with some official business before they could go in. Axel was okay with that. Missing first period was definitely a perk.

He had briefly considered just not showing up, going off to find his friends and attending class as normal to show how much he didn’t care. But that might be misconstrued as running away because he was scared, and that would really not bode well for him. Organisation politics was hard, something might seem like the cool kid thing to do but in reality have the opposite effect. So here he was, outside the headmaster’s office and feeling honestly pretty chill about the whole debacle.

Sora was kicking at the scratchy green carpet and glaring at Axel. He knew that because he’d looked at the other guy a few times, but also because he could feel Sora’s eyes boring into his freaking sides.

Minutes kept passing with no sign of Mr Mouse, so Axel looked at Sora with his trademark mischievous grin. “You want me to sign something for you, kid?”

Sora folded his arms and turned around in his chair. Axel was sure his expression was just as sour, only now it was focused on the far wall instead of Axel himself.

Axel chuckled. “No, it’s okay. Admire your handiwork if you must.” As Sora slowly turned back around, Axel gestured to his nose. “I mean, if I’d done this to you, I would stare. Hell, I’d take a picture. Lasts longer.”

“Stop being weird,” Sora said, clearly frustrated, but this time he didn’t look away. His arms slowly unfolded and found themselves by his side.

“Would you rather I started hitting you again? Because I can if you want, and this time I promise to actually try.” Axel quickly cast his gaze over Sora. There were probably some bruises under his uniform, but all he could see at the moment was the boy’s black eye.

Sora put his hand to his face, suddenly conscious of Axel’s looking. “Just leave me alone.”

“Okay.” Axel reached into his pocket for his phone, then turned it on and was met with a push notification from Snapchat.

_Snap from MelodiousNocturne!_

That was Demyx. The titles Xemnas had dished out were pretty out there, but they made the Organisation feel more official, so nobody really complained.

He swiped to open the snap. It was a four second image of Demyx in a music classroom. She was winking at the camera and had her tongue out to the side, and he could see the neck of a guitar she must have been holding. She was pretty with big, blue, clueless eyes. Her golden hair was cut short for a girl and standing on end from all the hairspray. Zexion was visible in the background of the picture with a particularly fed-up expression. Caption: “gotta play them sick tunes” with a string of emojis.

Axel smiled to himself. Pretty cute.

“Could you get off your phone please, Axel?” That voice was unmistakably Mr Mouse. Axel pocketed the phone and glanced at Sora.

Sora looked back, his expression hard.

“Right, boys.” Mr Mouse gave a half-hearted smile and gestured to his open office door. “Why don’t you two come inside?”

-

Twenty minutes later, Axel could tell Mr Mouse’s head was starting to hurt.

“Alright…” the headmaster said, squinting at a coffee mug ring left on his desk. “Let me get this straight. Sora, you hit Axel because he threatened your cousin, Roxas.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Axel,” Mr Mouse said, sending Axel a look that said _please cooperate._ “Why did you do that?”

“Roxas threatened me first,” Axel said.

“Roxas did.” Mr Mouse laced his fingers together and set his hands out on the desk.

Axel leant back in his chair. “Yep.”

“Roxas, Sora’s cousin Roxas, threatened you.”

Well, shit. Mr Mouse wasn’t buying it, but Axel was sticking to his guns. “He got up in my face and said he’d ‘get’ me, whatever that means.” He laughed to make sure they knew he wasn’t scared.

Mr Mouse opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head, evidently thinking better of it. “Right…okay. And, erm, if _Roxas_ is the one who threatened you, why did you guys get mad at Sora?”

Axel paused. Tactful wording was key. “Well, you know, Roxas is…uh, Xemnas figured we’d go to Sora, because Sora would understand better.”

Mr Mouse hesitated before giving an uneasy nod. Axel was glad he wasn’t the only one unsure how to talk about Roxas’ condition. The rest of the Organisation probably wouldn’t care, would just refer to the poor kid as r*tarded or “special” or something. He didn’t want to do that. Axel knew full well he was an asshole, he just didn’t want to be that kind of asshole…at least, not when he had the choice.

The headmaster sighed. “I suppose talking about _why_ will only get us so far. The bottom line is that even if you get into a disagreement, you still have to play nice. Fist fights aren’t going to accomplish anything, and they are certainly not an acceptable form of behaviour.”

“Yes, Mr Mouse,” Sora mumbled. Axel stayed silent.

Mr Mouse nodded. “Now, we’re going to have to talk about suspension…”

-

They walked out with a three day suspension, all in all not too bad. Axel called his dad to pick him up and got ready for a couple days off. But a thought niggled at the back of his mind, about Roxas. Without him to mediate, they’d be merciless to the poor kid.

Maybe a counter-measure would be in order.

 _FlurryofDancingFlames:_ look out for roxas

 _MelodiousNocturne:_?

 _FlurryofDancingFlames:_ don’t tell anyone

-

Demyx tried to decipher exactly _why_ Axel wanted him to look out for Roxas, when Roxas was causing them trouble. He came to no conclusion, and was still staring at the message when Belle announced, “Second Dance Committee meeting is now in session!”

Well, no time to think about it now. He put his phone in his pocket and smiled at Belle.

Kairi had brought someone new to the committee today. A blonde girl he recognised, one who was usually alone, but occasionally seen going to and from classes with Roxas. Demyx wracked his brain for a name…Nam-something?

“So this is Naminé. I thought I’d bring her along this week. I hope that’s okay?”

Belle and Aladdin looked at each other for a moment. “That should be fine,” Aladdin said, eyes on Belle to see if she objected.

Belle nodded. “As long as you put your name on the sign-up sheet.” She flipped to a certain page on her clipboard and slid it to Naminé. “Do you need me to give you a pen?”

Naminé shook her head, pulled a crayon out of her pocket and signed her name in neat little letters on the list. Belle looked like she was about to say something, but she didn’t.

Naminé seemed nice.

She tugged on Kairi’s sleeve and pointed at Demyx. “I know the others, but who’s he?”

Demyx _really_ liked Naminé!

“Oh! She’s Demyx,” Kairi said with an apologetic glance at him.

It probably wasn’t fair to dislike Kairi more based on that. But anyway, based on that, he disliked Kairi more.

“Okay,” Belle said, reaching out to take her clipboard back. “Well, let’s get going. We need to sort out photography stuff and refreshments.”

Naminé put up her hand.

“Uh, you don’t have to do that here,” said Mulan.

Naminé just stared at her, keeping her hand in the air.

Belle stared for a moment but it didn’t take her long to give in. “Yes, Naminé?”

“This is an ICT classroom. If I log onto one of the computers, I could make a spreadsheet with the information. It would make things easier.”

Belle smiled. “Alright, feel free!”

That sounded good to Demyx. A spreadsheet would keep everything organised in one place, and if Naminé knew how to actually use Excel…well, who would stand in her way?

Demyx smiled. “Hey, Naminé?” he said, inwardly cringing a bit at the high-pitched sound of his voice.

She looked back from where she now sat at one of the computers.

“Welcome to the team.”


	10. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't even have the energy to read over this chapter, so you can imagine what the quality will be like. lmao

It was the morning of the Thursday of the second week, twenty minutes before the bell. She sat at one of the shiny tables waiting for Roxas to arrive. Until he did, she was pretty sure she’d be silent, with no real desire to talk to anyone else. Apart from being shy, words were kind of hard to make right now, and she didn’t want to waste the effort.

She was pretty sure it was okay to consider Roxas as a friend. Sure they’d known each other for less than two weeks, but they’d been talking almost nonstop. They had Maths and RE together and they talked every lunch and break. That seemed to accurately describe the relationship most other people had with their friends. Xion wouldn’t know from prior experience.

She heard sniggers to her left and looked around immediately to spot some older boys. Not wanting to meet any eyes, she couldn’t quite tell if they had been laughing at her, but she assumed the worst and shrunk into herself a bit. She got her phone out of her bag and switched on the front camera to check if she looked weird, and, well, no weirder than usual. She’d been making sure to take showers every day at this new school so her hair wouldn’t get greasy, even though it was A) a lot of effort and B) sensory hell. That had to count for something, appearance-wise.

Maybe they were laughing at something else about her. Maybe the Alpacasso keychain clipped onto her otherwise plain black schoolbag was too childish, or maybe they’d heard something dumb she said from one of her classmates. In any case, staring at her face on her phone screen wasn’t doing anything to improve her mood. She clicked it into standby and shoved it back in her bag.

Roxas showing up would be really nice round about now.

The chatter in the lunch hall was growing louder as more kids arrived. It was like the noise was physically surrounding her, looming over her and leering. She reached into her pocket for her fidget ring and put it on—she tried to get through most days without using it, but sometimes appearances had to be sacrificed for the sake of actually getting through the day.

The fidget ring has a sort of switch that could be flicked back and forth on it, which she did repetitively, almost obsessively. Staring at it numbly, she felt like she was trying to eject her soul from her body into a quieter plane of existence. One with less scary people.

Adults were definitely scariest, but kids could be pretty bad too. She suddenly looked up, surveyed the room for the “Organisation” as she realised what a great target she would be right now. Was it just paranoia to assume they’d go after her? Just because she was a mess, and Roxas’ friend? Maybe, maybe not. She spotted the black hoodies of Axel and some of his friends and felt a little pang of anger through the haze of fear. _Dickhead._

Angry was a lot better than anxious. She tried to focus on that feeling, honed in on it and ran with that train of thought. How dare Axel do that to Roxas? Pretending Roxas was doing something wrong when all he did was apologise was freaking despicable. She needed to protect Roxas from people like that, but she had no idea how when her ears were so sensitive and her emotional state so fragile and, fuck, she couldn’t go five minutes without being reminded of exactly why she left her last school.

Roxas still wasn’t there.

The boys laughed again and this time she was sure it was at her. She was shaking, chewing her lip raw and breathing a little too fast and it was probably extremely visible and Christ, this was awful. And just because her brain and body loved to make matters even worse at every possible opportunity, she felt a wetness on her cheek. She put her hand to her face and, yup, she was crying. Frantic and desperate not to let anyone see this, she got up and ran to the girls’ toilets.

The worst part was how she didn’t have a reason beyond it being a little loud and some boys laughing. Her anxiety didn’t care.

*

Roxas and Ventus got to school a little later than usual. They had to make a detour on the way to school because Ven was out of hair gel and “needed” some immediately.

“I can’t go a whole day looking half-assed and floppy.”

So yeah, they arrived at school with Ven clutching hair gel. “Okay Rox, I’m gonna go to the bathroom and apply this stuff. You alright?”

Roxas nodded, but he was frowning. Not because of Ven’s words, no, that part was fine but he couldn’t see Xion anywhere. _Odd,_ he thought. _She’s usually here by now._

He thought of maybe going to ask Sora if he’d seen her, but then remembered, oh right, Sora was suspended. His friend Kairi might know, though. He looked around the lunch hall for her. She was with that boy, Riku, at a table on the far end. He set off.

It wasn’t a bad day for Roxas, so he wasn’t too affected by the bustle of people and interweaving voices as he made his way down to Kairi. When he got to the table, he tapped her shoulder briefly to get her attention, and when she turned around he said, “Hello?”

Kairi had raised eyebrows. “Oh, hi Roxas,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Have you seen Xion?”

“Xion?”

“You know,” Riku said, which startled Roxas a bit. “Short black hair, kind of emo? Looks like your twin separated at birth?”

The _emo_ comment bothered Roxas a little, but he nodded.

“Right, Xion!” Kairi furrowed her brow. “Uh, I think I saw her earlier, at that table—” Kairi turned round, gesturing to an empty table. “Oh. I guess she’s gone now.”

“But where?” Roxas wondered aloud.

Kairi shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Right…thanks anyway.” Roxas turned to leave but Kairi said, “Wait!”

He turned back around.

“You can sit at our table if you want,” she offered. “There’s plenty of room.”

Roxas took a moment to think. Kairi and Riku were nice, probably. They wouldn’t do anything bad to him, they were friends with Sora and Sora would never be friends with people who would do bad things to him. He nodded, pressing his lips together into a line, and took a seat on Kairi’s side of the table, but left a one-chair gap between them.

Suddenly, an epiphany. If he was someone else he might have smacked his forehead in frustration like, _“Why didn’t I think of this before?”_ He could just text Xion and ask where she was.

_Me to Xion: hi xi. where are you?_

That sounded reasonable. He hit send and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long for a response.

_Xion to me: I’m not okay right now_

That kind of sent his heart rate up a bit. Even having only known the girl for a couple weeks, he was pretty attached.

_Me to Xion: if you tell me where you are i can come help_

_Xion to me: Girls’ toilets._

Oh. Maybe not, then.

_Xion to me: I don’t wanna come out_

_Me to Xion: why?_

_Xion to me: Crying_

Part of Roxas immediately wanted to know what happened, but he took a deep breath and thought about it. Years of social interaction had taught him a little technique, which was to imagine someone saying something to him before he said it to someone else. If he was crying, he wouldn’t want someone to immediately jump into exactly why. So instead he said:

_Me to Xion: if you come out i can walk you to the office?_

This time the reply took a little longer, so long that the bell for first period actually rang, but Roxas didn’t want to go to class and leave her hanging, so he stayed and waited even when Kairi and Riku tried to get him to move.

Three minutes past the bell, he received

 _Xion to me:_ Okay.

Maybe that was on purpose, that she waited until everyone had vacated the lunch hall before responding. Roxas went up to the girls’ toilets door and waited for her to come out. He was going to be pretty late for first period, but the teacher was just going to have to deal with that. Maybe he could even get the office staff to write him a note.

Xion emerged after a moment, eyes puffy and red. The itch to ask what happened was still there, but he continued to suppress it. She walked up to Roxas and gave him a weird look, with her mouth all twisted and her eyes wide. Though it didn’t come naturally to him, he was able to sift through his mental What’s What of basic facial expressions and say with about 85% confidence that she was scared. Scared of what? Probably of being judged.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He was taken aback by that. “What for?”

She was silent apart from little sniffles.

Roxas nodded and let the silence continue for a few minutes, as he just stared at her and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Having a friend like her was good, but seeing her cry sucked. That gave him an idea.

"Is it okay if I touch you?" he asked in what he hoped was a gentle tone.

She paused a moment, then nodded, so he reached out, put his hand to her face and wiped away her tears. Xion didn’t protest, just looked at him with those big eyes again.

When he felt he had made some kind of a difference (hard when the tears just wouldn’t stop coming) he said, “Come on, let’s go to the office.”

She nodded and reached out, her hand grasping his sleeve. If that was comforting to her, he was okay with that.

Physical contact could be scary, but not with Xion, not anymore.


End file.
